


It Can’t Get Worse Than This

by HereToWrite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Lots of Clone Wars references and such, Obi-Wan has issues, So much angst, canon complacent, so many issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23766724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereToWrite/pseuds/HereToWrite
Summary: “And you, Master. What does your heart tell you you’re meant for?”“Infinite sadness,” Obi-Wan said, even while smiling.~Labyrinth of EvilOr, Obi-Wan’s life is just a series of things going from bad to worse
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	It Can’t Get Worse Than This

**Author's Note:**

> I’m super excited for the end of Clone Wars...I also realized that the last few days of the Clone Wars were probably the worse days of Obi-Wan’s life and thus this story was born  
> —  
> The quote is from James Luceno‘s book Labyrinth of Evil

_ “And you, Master. What does your heart tell you you’re meant for?” _

_ “Infinite sadness,” Obi-Wan said, even while smiling. _

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan thinks as bile rises in his throat at the smell of his master’s burning flesh upon the pyre in front of him.

The grief, the stress, the anxiety, it must surely reach its climax here amongst the ruins of his once simple life. 

25 is young, he knows this, but he can’t imagine a pain worse than this crushing agony that yanks at his heart and pulls him down into misery.

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan begs as he closes his eyes and let’s the Force wash away his pain.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan reassures his nine year old Padawan he was in no way prepared for as the boy panics over the fact that he can’t read nor write. It was to be expected and yet his simple attempts to explain this logic does nothing to soothe Anakin’s soul. His stern lecture of this not being the Jedi way even less so. 

Anakin just keeps crying, his doubts bleeding into the Force. His fears sending shivers through Obi-Wan’s brain.

_ Fear is the path to the dark side, _ a voice whispers ominously, but Obi-Wan banishes it away and pulls Anakin to him.

With a tenderness that would make most Jedi scoff, but perhaps make Qui-Gon smile, he brushes the tears off of his apprentice's face and explains how they’ll fix it.

He pulls out a data pad and whispers softly, “We’ll start with aurek.”

—

It can’t get worse than this Obi-Wan hopes as his 19 year old Padawan trembles on his bed, gasping and fighting forces that Obi-Wan can’t see.

“My mother,” Anakin had said wildly last time he’d woken and Obi-Wan felt something akin to fear race through him.

“She’ll be fine,” he had said, “Dreams will pass.”

But they weren’t passing now and Obi-Wan is helpless to make the process faster. 

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan scowls as he hangs suspended before his master’s master. Ignoring the twisting in his gut, the hurt, the betrayal.

Dooku walks around him, muttering lies and tempting with deals, but Obi-Wan refuses. This man cannot possibly be the man who trained his master, rather he is a Sith who inhabits the same body. The same form.

Obi-Wan’s would rather die than join him.

Dooku must see this, because he makes the necessary arrangements.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan sighs, as Anakin and the young Senator of Naboo get chained up next to him.

It was foolish of Anakin to come here. It was foolish of Obi-Wan to believe that Anakin wouldn’t. The boy was too attached, too rash, always jumping into things, never thinking things through.

The cages rattle as Obi-Wan ends his stream of sarcastic defenses and the beasts enter the arena.

He suddenly feels very tired.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan feels guilt bleed into his veins as he watches his apprentice bow over a newly installed mechno-arm. Shivering at a pain that was just as much one of the mind as it was of the body.

Obi-Wan’s leg aches, reminding him of his failure, of his inability to keep even his closest friends safe from those who had betrayed him.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, rolls over on the medical cot, and pretends to sleep.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan chants as war blossoms around the galaxy.

As children, friends, allies, parents, die by the hand of the Separatists. 

As peacekeepers get violently repurposed into generals and commanders. 

As he and Trapper bake in their crashed ship underneath the Geonosian sun.

As Ahsoka dies for a few brief, heart stopping, gut retching moments.

As she goes missing just weeks later, only to return with new scars and a haunted look in her eyes. 

As he rots away in a slave camp, unable to do anything but obey.

As he watches Rex kill a man, a slaver, a demon, and can’t bring himself to care. 

As Anakin hunts him for murdering himself.

As Maul returns anew, revived only by his hatred of Obi Wan. 

As Satine dies in his arms, another casualty of his mistakes.

As Ahsoka betrays them, but doesn’t. As he says nothing at her trial, as she leaves the Order without so much as a good-bye. As he does nothing to stop her. 

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan mourns, as Anakin breaks, and breaks, and breaks, and he does nothing.

As all his mistakes flood over him and Obi-Wan is just now realizing he never learned how to swim. 

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan thinks confidently as he and Anakin race off to save the Chancellor. 

His spat with Ahsoka had left a tight aching ball in his chest, but he can ignore it. This will end the war. This will change things. This will make sure this is the last terrible thing that will happen.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan splutters as he breaks the surface of the water. Leaving his varactyl to drown without him.

His thoughts wildly try to make sense of the source of his injuries, adrenaline shooting through him in all the worse ways. That had been the 212th weaponry. That had been his men. That had been Cody. The thick feeling of betrayal blankets over him, leaving him feeling claustrophobic and confused. 

_ Poor Obi-Wan _ , Ventress’s voice taunts from somewhere in his memory.  _ You've been betrayed. _

Obi-Wan thinks that if he wasn’t so busy surviving he might’ve stopped to laugh at how simple a phrase could describe his life. 

—

It can’t get worse, Obi-Wan begs as the Force weeps for its children as they’re gunned down by their allies and slandered as traitors. 

Please, he continues as he flicks a switch, desperate to know the truth.

An image flickers into view and Obi-Wan’s blood runs cold as the last feeble bits of his life crumble around him. 

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan wails as he watches Anakin burn. No, not Anakin, couldn’t be Anakin.

Anakin was a sarcastic comment shouted over the rain of blaster fire. The quirked smile as Obi-Wan fumbles his words. The steady hand of an ally. The tender caring of a brother.

This withering thing in front of Obi-Wan wasn’t Anakin.

Still even as it shouts and raves at him, Obi-Wan can’t help but tell this monster that he loved him, because perhaps his brother would hear.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Obi-Wan thinks hallowly as the last of his friends proceed to die on an operating table, go into exile, or flee into hyperspace with one half of a whole.

He moves wistfully, body working automatically as his mind wonders blankly through nothing. He lands uneventfully on Tatooine and makes his way across the Dune Sea.

Luke does not cry in his arms, but that’s okay Obi-Wan finds that he cries enough for the both of them.

—

It can’t get worse than this, as Obi-Wan Kenobi dies on a dusty planet where no one knows his name and Ben Kenobi rises out of the ashes of his failures.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Ben figures as he tries to figure out how to fade, how to let go. 

(How to train Luke when Owen thinks him a murderer. How to avoid detection. How to ignore the ever growing despair of the galaxy.)

Then Darth Vader shows up on the HoloNet, dark, and foreboding and wrong, wrong,  _ wrong _ .

That night Ben Kenobi screams into the darkness, flinging furniture, and pots, and journals to the floor.

It wasn’t fair, was never fair, all the Sith he destroyed always came back. Always haunted him to the ends of the galaxy. 

Ben Kenobi collapses sobbing and no one hears.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Ben figures as he watches Vader approach him. He thinks he should feel scared, should feel angry, should feel something other than this nothingness that’s suffocating him as he half-heartedly deflects blows, but he can’t bring himself to care. To feel.

A commotion. He looks over, watches as Luke (so much like his father, nothing like his father,  _ everything like his father _ ) tries to get to him.

It’s too late.

Ben knows this. Vader lifts his lightsaber, a flash of red against the metal of the walls.

Ben Kenobi smiles, let’s the blade pass through him, and fades away into nothing.

—

It can’t get worse than this, Ben laments as Luke loses a hand, as Luke finds out the truth, as Luke ignores the impossibility of turning a monster back into a man.

As he declares himself a Jedi, as the Emperor vanishes into the abyss at his apprentice’s hand, as Luke slays Vader, but not in any of the ways that Ben thought he would.

—

It can’t get better than this, Ben, Obi-Wan, cries as Anakin,  _ Anakin, _ appears in ghostly pale blue, looking confused, hurt, and oh so human.

Obi-Wan stumbles, crossing the distance, and gathers his brother into his arms.

Leave it to Anakin to do the impossible. Leave it to Anakin to come back when he was never supposed to.

Leave it to Luke to show him how.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y’all enjoyed this story!


End file.
